The current announcement by President Obama in his support of gay marriage has me pondering a question. Is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons still doing the right thing? I do not believe for a minute that President Obama or Governor Romney do anything without calculating whether or not it will gain or lose them votes. As the tied turns towards the acceptance of gay marriage so does the opinion of President Obama. Did he make this decision based on strong personal conviction? I do not believe he did, he strikes me as a man that does nothing without weighting what kind of personal gain can be had from it. I feel the same way about Governor Romney who like Obama is a consummate politician.

So back to the question: Is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons still doing the right thing? I personally believe it is not the right thing. When anyone compromises their integrity for personal gain whether it turns out to be a popular decision or not they are doing harm, not only to themselves but to the people around them. Imagine a football game where the officials made calls based on whether or not the call was popular or not. We can rest assured that the game would quickly descend into chaos and they would no longer be officials, integrity and order demands that they follow the rules. We have rules in our lives that we follow and when we compromise those rules we not only hurt our own image but we damage those that are under our leadership. You can never do the right thing for personal gain and still consider it to be the right thing. I once heard it said that physical courage makes a man strong in one way, but moral courage to stand up in opposition to the world around makes a man strong in many ways.